<p>Kansas does not have a minimum age as long as both parents or guardians approve or the marriage is approved by a judge- this is about a 13 year old from Nebraska with 22 year old "boy"friend- she got pregnant, so mom sent them to Kansas to get married because Kansas has not age limit</p>
<p>The “husband” is being charged with sexual assualt of a minor by Nebraska</p>
<p>When I was teaching in Hawaii, one of my seventh graders told me that during the summer vacation she was going to the mainland to visit relatives in the mid-west, she would be traveling with her 22 year old boy friend they were going to fly to LA and then drive…She and her parents looked surprised when I told her that in many mainland states her boyfriend might be arrested after their first night in a hotel. Since then Hawaii overroad a governors veto and introduced an age of concent.</p>
<p>If a 22 year old man was after my 14 yo D, I would do whatever it took to get that man arrested., for his own safety…its amazing what some people think is okay…</p>
<p>I feel bad for the thirteen year old. I’m fifteen. I still watch cartoons. I can’t ever picture myself getting married this early. Both of us are only kids. She has so much in front of her to get tied down like that.</p>
<p>I have seen some of the less than desireable elements from my bar hopping days, and I will tell you that this goes on a lot more than people realize. I don’t know why, where the hell could you take a 14 year old wife? Roller skating?</p>
<p>The whole thing, from mom sending D off to get married, to it being allowed in Kansas, to the disgusting 22 year old, is so sad and into all this comes a baby with that family…poor kid</p>
<p>How does that work seriously though with statatory rape cases? Like how in some states the age of consent is 18, but in other states you can legally get married at a very young age. Do these pervs get prosecuted still or are they “grandfathered” in?</p>
<p>And as we all know, rape is far, far more likely to occur in Nebraska or Kansas–statutory or otherwise–than in ethically advanced locales like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami or New Yorkprobably because families in these Midwest-backwater states lack a highly developed sense of right and wrong, or dare I say it, morality and family values.</p>
<p>Same would apply for most other crimes I would think, like murder, trafficking in illicit drugs and other random crimes of sexual violence.</p>
<p>The Midwest just doesnt get it: gotta get with the program Kansas!</p>
<p>I wonder what the penalty for statutory rape is in states other than Nebraska: in Nebraska it seems to be 50 years.</p>
<p>FountainSiren, how can you say this? People are people, the world over. You can’t characterize people as amoral because thet live in a certain place! Stereotyping people never works.</p>
<p>If it did, I’d be an ignorant, sun-baked Southerner who can’t tell the difference between Gore and Bush.</p>
<p>Well, I guess I saw the irony in that a state that seems to pride itself
on being morally correct lets girls get married at 13. Guess any marriage is better than none at all.</p>
<p>Yeah, and statuatory rape is bad anywhere, but if its sanctioned by the state and mom, its a-okay</p>
<p>And, I know just about know you will bring in abstinance education. Well, go ahead. I think teens should not have sex, but gee they do. And if they do have sex, they should understand contraception and then maybe little babies won’t get born into such a disfunctional mess
and if you want to make the claim that a 13 and a 22 are a good match, well, I must disagree. Oh wait, she might have been 11 when they started “dating”-</p>
<p>I’m not sure if that was addressed to me, but…</p>
<p>… I didn’t say the Kansas law was right. I just said you can’t stereotype people based on where they live. All of us show know that from the diverse group on this board.</p>
<p>I agree that statutory rape is bad, if it truly is rape. The term applies to any intercourse, voluntary as well, between someone over the age of consent and someone under the age of consent.</p>
<p>I wasn’t going to bring up abstinence education. I wasn’t going to say that 13 and 22 are a good match (though, interestingly enough, Poe was older than that when he married his 13-year-old cousin). But saying Midwesterners have no sense of right and wrong is like saying that Northeasterners are always morally right.</p>
<p>And FS was trying to be sarcastic, because I criticized the Kansas law and wondered what Kansas was thinking by having such a law that it was okay to get married at any age- if I am wrong FS, please let me know</p>
<p>Aside from the moral issues, do you people really think that it is right for a family to be broken apart and the father of a newborn child sent to prison because the new mother is only 14? She won’t get her virginity back - at least she had the opportunity to raise her child in a two-parent home rather than as an unwed mother. There are unwed mothers that age in all the states that have statutory rape laws – and those laws certainly don’t stop sex from going on. And the husband is definitely not an “old man” - the 9-year age difference won’t seem like much in a decade.</p>
<p>It seems to me that what happened was that a teenager got pregnant, decided not to have an abortion, and that the father took responsibility and agreed to marry his girlfriend, crossing the state line to do so – and that acceptance of responsibility what has gotten him in trouble in his home state – as opposed to all the pregnant 14 year old’s in Nebraska who have told their parents and authorities that they don’t know who the father is. </p>
<p>Anybody remember Jerry Lee Lewis? or Loretta Lynn? I mean, geez - since Kansas law requires parental consent for an early marriage, all it is doing is allowing a way to legitimize a relationship and preserve the rights of infants in situations like this where the baby is already on the way. </p>
<p>I just can’t fathom what good could possibly come out of prosecuting this case.</p>
<p>in my country it is not uncommon to date people much older or younger but for example most 18 year old girls are dating guys in their mid to late 20s and most 18 year old guys are dating 13 year old girls. However, the culture is very different with regards to sex and respecting women. Most of the women in the country don’t have sex unless they are married and the men definitely show an extremely high level of respect. Most of the dates are chaperoned as well by older brothers, sisters, friends, etc.</p>